return from france

after a wonderful 9-day vacation (which was too short!) i am back stateside in washington, dc. i have to admit, being on vacation made me lazy and i slipped on one of my long runs! i missed a 10-mile run last saturday. but in my defense, it was really cold and raining and would have made for a miserable running experience. the shorter weekday runs that i did were really nice and very scenic. while i don't have photos of me running, i do have one of regis and i, where in the background you can see the beach that i ran on!

mid-week, after regis' brother's wedding, we took off for the bassin d'arcachon (merci beaucoup a benoit et sa famille for letting us crash at their flat!) for a map of where arcachon is, click here. arcachon is really nice; it's in southwest france (near bordeaux) on the atlantic ocean. it's famous for the dune du pilat, which is this large hill of sand that you can climb and when you do, you will see the breathtaking view of the basin below! i'm attaching a photo here, where we are at the top of the dune!

i did some nice runs on the beach. however, i'm nervous for this weekend's long run since i missed my long weekend run last week. this saturday, it's a 20-mile run! eek! this will be my longest run until the marathon! after this weekend, we start tapering, in order to give the body time to repair for the marathon!

until saturday...